Friday, November 23, 2007

Pain & Agony

Let me tell you the feeling.

Your whole body is aching, your insides feel as if they’re clawing themselves out, your skin writhes on every touch. Your head weighs a tonne and is constantly buzzing, the back of your neck is strained and you feel the nerves of every inch of your anatomy clenched and stretched like a mechanism to endure utmost pain. Your throat is dry and the thought of food repulses your every core.

Every step you take feels like a knife forced into your skin. Every movement is agony. Your senses are amplified, the sound of singing birds are like thundering storms, the sight of lights of oncoming traffic feel like laser beams torched right into your soul. You even feel the strenuous effect of your body trying to breathe.

At this moment, you ceased caring. You don’t care whether there are terrorist attacks in London or Kedah is hit by another tsunami. You don’t care whether another building in Perak is on the verge of collapsing or that V.K.Lingam will be getting away scotch free. Heck, those are far too remote. Closer to home, you don’t care whether you will be home in time to play one round of Congkak with your kids or that they’re watching something on telly that they’re not supposed to be watching. Or that the maid had just scorched your linen lingerie and misplaced your favourite peddle-pushers. You just don’t care.

And hell raises when you’re blocked by a moron driving a grey MyV on the way home. The silly twit of a punkster driver who thinks he can swerve his way between a twelve-tyre container lorry and a Bas Persiaran. Come on, its 12 tyres for heavens sake! You’re a quarter of its length and you think you’re Rempit enough to wheeze through and be the first on the front line? I hate small-brained drivers. I hate it even more when they’re driving small cars and develop a low-esteem attitude of trying to prove to the world that they can be as fast and is as much of a bully-candidate as any other big car. Grow up, small car! Unless you can transform into a Megatron, to me and most road users, you’re a pesky pest, and should only be allowed on motorcycle lanes. That’s how much we think of you. (This applies only to drivers of small cars with character-misplacement issues).

And you curse under your breath and hold the horn down for two whole minutes, while negotiating maneuvering tactics around the punkster twit, and would have given him the finger if you hadn’t thought that it wasn’t quite a ladylike thing to do. And then you step on the gas and try to make it home in record time. And hell would have raised again if you were stopped by a petrol car for speeding.

And you reach home, a little worse for wear, and still in painstaking misery. And as you step out of the car, you missed a step and trip over your own foot and fall knee down on the rough pebblewash. And that had to hurt. It had to send a rippling stab right on your knee bone, passing through your thigh and landing in your stomach (it would be groin, if I had one), sending little gassy bubbles spreading in your tummy cells, exactly like little needle points on a wide open wound.

I would have torn my hair apart if I had the energy. I would have shouted and ranted and screamed at the top of my lungs and brought shame to my entire family if I wanted to. I told you I didn’t care, didn’t I.

But right at that moment, as by magic, it was decided that I had had enough of that I could take, and it was time to cut me some slack. It was decided that living three days of torture and being driven almost to the point of insanity was sufficient. I was forgiven and I have been spared.

I could feel liquid trickling down my thigh. And no more pain.

Ladies and gentlemen, my bubble has burst. Literally. The BOIL aka BISUL that had grown in the most unexpected of places, and Grow it did, and along the way, each growth spurt had rendered me less of a human being, had finally given up and exploded.

With a big chitty chitty bang bang, the volcano had erupted.

I am I once more. The reasonable, at most time pleasant person that I am is back. I can hear the birds singing sweet songs again, and I can see that the sky is a clear shade of blue.

But I still hate punkster twits driving small cars.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Flying High In The Sky

I had a dream last night. I dreamt that I was peering through a window, and looking into this majestic setting of a dining room, I could see a long table, precious stones encrusted, heavily laden with food, food, glorious food. There were cakes, éclairs, truffles, soufflés, macarons, scones filled with jam and cream, the prettiest cupcakes and all the bite-sized of everything chocolaty that you get at Shangri-La during Ramadhan. Notice I only mention dessert. I don’t know why. It could be that I just had something fishy for dinner and subconsciuosly pining for something sweet. But I’m a coffee person, not really much of a dessert freak, so why again is a big question. And why all the food was “England-mali Banyak sombong” – your guess is as good as mine.

But that’s not what this is about. The image of the food table obviously reminded me of Potter’s never-ending banquet dinners at Hogwarts, but what I remembered most about the dream was that I was peering into the window, and the window was 20 feet high. I was floating mid-air. I wasn’t horizontal or sideskirting, and I wasn’t flapping around with wings. I was fully upright, and my feet was squared on the floor of the air, just like it would be on solid land.

It was awesome. At least I think it was. Wait – was the floating part awesome, or salivating the food table awesome. Come to think about it, I honestly can’t remember. But I remembered something was awesome.

The thing is, I don’t dream. I don’t remember of any encounter of waking up in the middle of the night, jolted by a dream. Or waking up in the morning, all smiley faced, basking in the aftermath of a dream. If at all I do dream, then it’s all erased and gone ‘Poof’ by the time my eyes flicker open.

But this thing-of-a-dream lasted quite a while. The thought of me floating in mid-air gave me some sort of adrenalin rush, like a caffeine lift. Then my free-roaming mind would go on a minute detour, and all would be lost. No thanks to my slacking mind control, I could only hold that feeling for a measly few seconds. But even then… syiok ohh…

No wonder Superman, aliens, Puntianaks Sundal Malam and any other creature of nature or supernatural would choose to fly instead of any other mode of transportation. The weightlessness, breeze in your face, hands-free-carefree feeling is toxic.

And I just discovered something. I had fallen asleep watching the first episode of Heroes Season 2 yesterday. The last part was about a boy peering into the girl’s bedroom window. Second floor window, that is, and he was floating mid-air. And I was eating left over birthday cake while watching it.

So, my dream was cetak rompak. But the feeling was real. Maybe if I eat cake, and watch it again tonight, I could feel it again. It’s definitely cheaper than smoking, or injecting heroin or chasing the dragon, or doing whatever it is that people do to get high. Cake and Heroes’ the answer, man...
You fly... You fly high.


Tuesday, November 6, 2007

The Accident

I just came back from lunch with a colleague.

She drove, I happily sat next to her (oh the joy of being driven!), and as I’m such a penglipurlara, started to entertain her with weekend stories, and Bang! She hit the front car.

It was a horror of a car… and a monster of a driver. A white automobile, not exactly a car, but not quite a van. It had no H logo for Honda, or three stuck triangles for Mitsubishi… no logo, no name, no signature, so, do not expect me to know what make it was. I just know how to drive one… Schumacher style.

The vehicle was scratched and dented in more areas than one, left tail-light was broken, the back signal light was perpetually flashing, tyres were wobbling in a rather dangerous way, and it was terribly, awfully, filthy. And that was before the accident. After the accident - the vehicle remained the same. No extra dents or additional touch ups on existing scratches.

But the vehicle screeched to a stop and swung to the side - ala Police Story, the driver flung his door open with such force it could blow off a wig. He jumped off the seat and forced his way to the back of the car, with expressions so stormy – we would have frozen to death if we had dared to look in his eyes. But we didn’t dare. So we casted our eyes down, and stole little glances.

He was Huge. Monster truck huge. Big bulging muscles with tattoos on the right arm. I widened my eyes, just a teeny bit, to decipher the tattoos – a dragon could mean he belongs to the Ghee Hin / Hai San kongsi gelap tribe; little numbers and horizontal coordinates could mean he’s an international child adopter, like Angelina Jolie; a rose or heart could mean he’s a peace lover – (this one, easy… sap, sap, soi… we can cari makan…) But I can’t read this guy. Tattoos were symbols of Chinese characters – unintelligible. He was wearing a white T-shirt, sleeves rolled up, enhancing his die-hard muscles, baggy blue jeans and flip-flops. Hair was tightly cropped, with one earring in his right earlobe.

I glanced at my colleague. She was literally shaking. Her fingers were clenched so tight around the steering wheel, her knuckles turned white. She couldn’t say a word. Not a squeak even. I waited to see whether she wanted to say something, do something, scream, cry, whatever – No Response. The Tomb Raider warrior in me started to take over.

So I shook my head at my colleague asking her to stay in the car, and I stepped out. I went around our car to see the extent of the damage, but all I could see were tiny white scratches, which could even have been there before.

I took a deep breath and walked up to the driver. “I’m ready when you are, Mister… so let’s get on with it”. Of course I said that only in my heart.

He glared at me and swung open his boot in one forceful act. Why is everything about this guy forceful and fierce, so full of drama… So I said, “Macamana Towkay…?”

He looked up at me, stoic faced. Not a single smile.

“Hi yaa… Sikit punya cilita. Tila pa laa… Lu baik-baik jalan….” … And he proceeded with opening boxes filled with Sponge Bob soft toys….

What The??? What A Waste Of My All-Geared-Up-And-Ready–For-Action Emotions…..

Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Such a waste of my adventure-seeking time.